27 July 2007

Took my time getting going; it doesn't seem right to rush away from a friend's house. But it wasn't too late. It had rained a couple of inches overnight, and looked like it might rain more. That might be OK, as long as there's a covered place I can remove my tire. When I stopped for gas (within 30 miles), it was spitting a bit, and continued to do so occasionally. But when I got to Ft. Wayne, it was dry.

I drove around a little, looking for the dealer, and when I finally found the building, it was empty. Damn! But then I saw a sign in the window with the address of where they'd moved to, so I programmed it into the GPS (twice, there was an "E" and a "W" and I guessed wrong first) and went back. If I'd been paying attention, I might have seen it, it was on the route I'd already taken through town.

It was a multi-brand dealer, with a non-biker as a service writer. But one of his mechanics was willing to work through his lunch hour to change a tire, so I saved $25 (and impressed the service writer, who offered me a job) by taking off the wheel in about five minutes. Then I walked around the shop a bit, and when I wandered up to the parts counter, the mechanic was there buying the tire; told me he'd already got the old one off, so I was thinking I'd get out of there fairly quickly.

After a while, I went back to the service area, and waited...and waited...and waited. Then I walked around some more, came back and waited...and waited...and waited. The service writer said he'd go see, and I waited...and waited, and he came back and said the mechanic was having trouble balancing it. (I speculate that he couldn't believe the weight it took, and was dismounting and remounting it in different orientations--or else he was a real screw-up, and had it mounted backward, then noticed the arrow--or maybe both.) But eventually he brought it out (with 2.5 oz of weights on it), I paid $187, thanked them all, remounted the wheel, repacked everything and continued on.

It continued to spit rain, almost constantly--it was annoying enough that I kept my faceshield down, but not enough to change my gloves for. Later in the afternoon it started to get worse ... within a couple of miles, it started to rain seriously; so I pulled over and put on my rain gloves and closed my sleeves. It rained pretty heavily for 20-25 miles, then started to slack off, and eventually stop. I decided I'd stop at the next available motel, which turned out to be in Kentland. It's a no-internet Patel ($41), and I started walking, hoping to find groceries. After wandering around some, then walking west a ways, I found Murphy's Food King ($10), then realized it was probably on the same street as the motel--and it was, just over a quarter mile away.

(After looking at my tracks, Kentland is where I turned south off of 24 on the 14th. So tomorrow morning, I'll be on the other side of the road from where I was two weeks earlier, for about 50 miles.)

States: Ohio, Indiana.
232 GPS miles (9256 total), 47.4 moving average, 80.2 max.
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